Bicycle touring and kayaking combined — cycling with kayak in tow and kayaking with bike on board

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Yo, Ho, Blog the Man Down

I wake up to rain, lots of it, and the forecast promises that it will get even worse. It has been a week since I started out and probably need a rest day anyway so I decide to stay put. The motel I am in is a real dive, and I talk them into cutting the price of the room by $15 by threatening to move on despite the rain.

Of all the places in New York state for me to be grounded for a rainy day, it had to be Ilion. The big thing in town is the Remington gun factory which is so not my cup of tea. Other than that there's the Rite-Aid Pharmacy (for when you shoot yourself in the foot), and the McDonald's (for when you are unsuccessful at shooting something for dinner). On my way to breakfast with the Hamburglar and Grimace (if there was anywhere where they would still exist it would be here) I pass by men in their Sunday undershirt best smoking cigarettes and drinking beer on a balcony at 9 am. I feel like I am trapped in a John Cougar Mellencamp song. OK, so maybe the rain is making me cynical.

The rain does get heavier, and by noon it is torrential. I spend the afternoon holed up in the motel room, taking advantage of the wi-fi to post a couple days worth of ramblings that have languished in my netbook, and editing some of the older posts.

Keeping a blog can be a chore, my hat is off to those who update theirs regularly and make it seem effortless. I'm not sure if I'll keep on doing it for other trips after this, but I am committed to seeing this one through until I get back home. If you are somewhat enjoying this one, do me a favour and click on the "follow" button on the right hand column. You don't even have to use your real name. Better yet, as the hosting site says, a good blog is interactive reading, more of a conversation and not just a monologue, so if you have anything to say on any of the posts, please do comment, ask a question, argue if you disagree, or just say something funny or stupid about it. This is the part where the busker draws your attention to the hat on the ground or passes it around, except I'm not looking for any coins, just a few words :)

It has been fun doing this, though, and knowing you're going to go public with writing about your day encourages you to actively seek something interesting or take more intriguing photos as you go. It's a creative writing exercise, and the way I've approached it is I take notes, written or mental, throughout the day and in the evening I try and weave it into a thematic anecdote. It's like one of those cooking shows where the chefs open up a hamper of disparate ingredients and try to concoct a palatable dish out of it all.